3.5
Asleep
ByPublisher Description
Banana Yoshimoto’s novels have established her as one of Japan’s finest and most popular writers, and an acclaimed and best-selling literary star all over the world. Now she delivers three novellas that develop her sophisticated, resonant, and artfully simple vision, in Asleep, a book that is already an international best-seller and may be her most charming since Kitchen.
Banana Yoshimoto has a nuanced and magical ability to animate the lives of her young characters, and here she spins the stories of three women, all bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning for a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by another woman whom she was once pitted against in a love triangle. Sly and mystical as a ghost story, with a touch of Kafkaesque surrealism, Asleep is an enchanting new book from one of the best writers of contemporary international fiction.
Banana Yoshimoto has a nuanced and magical ability to animate the lives of her young characters, and here she spins the stories of three women, all bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning for a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by another woman whom she was once pitted against in a love triangle. Sly and mystical as a ghost story, with a touch of Kafkaesque surrealism, Asleep is an enchanting new book from one of the best writers of contemporary international fiction.
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3.5
Karen!!!
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Eleonora
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Amoteque
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“Honestly when I picked this book up 7 months ago I did not think it would be as impactful as it was. Everyday I wanted to read this book because it was so gripping. When I wasn't reading this book I was thinking about reading this book.
This book has cemented my belief of LOVING short stories. The first story of loss of a brother, lover, and father was heartbreaking and I felt for the characters. Mari's loss felt real and like a reaction a normal person would have. Being unable to sleep knowing your lover is gone, never knowing if he felt the same, and not knowing if the other woman meant more to him than Mari did. The secrets Shibami kept felt real, like she kept them secrets in order to protect Mari and Yoshihiros child safe and blissfully unaware about the life that Yoshihiros lived/ didn't live.
I do not have much to say about the second story besides those characters felt realistically flawed, like they hated each other while blaming the wrong person for their hatred. Their closeness towards the end of the story felt deserved and that Banana Yoshimoto really knows how to write characters.
The last story is just like me for real though. Sleeping for extreme amount of hours every night unknowingly because of the work you're not doing. Because the person your partner most wants to be with cannot be with them, so they settle for you adding amongst the uncertainty of if what you're doing is morally correct. This story did have me worry about the moral implication of sleeping with a man whose wife is in a coma, thankfully Yoshimoto clears that thought immediately knowing readers would feel to conflicted to root for these characters.
Overall, I would want to read this book with fresh eyes again. The characters were intriguing as well as the lessons that the author wanted to tell. I recommend this book to anyone who feels lost within themselves whether it be because of grief, love, or just being uncomfortable in your own skin because this book makes you feel connected to its characters.”
Sofia Ceccato
Created 16 days agoShare
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